SD14 + DP1, 12-24 and 120-300 used most on these. Sigma Photo Pro for all color pictures and Raw Developer 1.80 used on all Black and white shots. Aperture for post and publishing. Click more for more! :D Full size images for all.
Archive for the '30mm 1.4' Category
Click for full size. If you have a Mac and a SD14 then please please try RD 1.8 out. For use Black and White nerds it’s heaven. This is processed using + monochrome XDR .. will show how you can use it and become BW master later. :D
a 100% crop of one of the above shot
Another really fun wedding session, this time a bit north or everything in a town called Mariestad - more famous for it’s fine beer. It was a bit tricky as Linn is now working down south as a guide on a castle and she couldn’t be my assistant. I really wanted that - so we improvised and used the best man for the job. Lucky for Jon and Carolina, it worked great! You can actually see him on several shots.
Oh, I also improved my car shooting style thingi - fun stuff! Lucky for me we had the time needed to play.
Cameras used was SD14 and DP1 - I had many lenses with me - more or less all but I ended up using the trusty 12-24 the most as I love the cokin filter border effect so much. Second place I think is 30 or 50mm 1.4 not sure as 50 is so new for me I tend to reach for the 30mm. 120-300 does give me joy when needed. It’s not very easy to find good occations or locations for it but when it’s time then it’s great!
I also noticed a slight magenta cast in some of the “just out of the church” shots - just so you know. :D
When open the whole article more pictures appears as well as some whom has been shown already above. Don’t be frightened about that, it’s perfectly normal.
Another wedding session, and I’m happy to announce that DP1 is a great b camera! :D Linn had hers with her all the time (she assist me) and she took quite a few really nice shots. I used mine as well and I got more keepers from the DP1 (compared to amount of shots taken) than with the SD14. More time to think? I think one or two of Linns are among these too.
My workflow has slightly changed and looks like the following. I make the basic adjustments from SD14 and DP1 RAW in SPP 2.5 Windows. After adjustments are done I import all into a new project in Apple Aperture.
In Aperture I use the new plugin called Viveza to further adjust certain spots - add light to face or simply to enhance black and white images. I also use Aperture to dodge and burn, crop and straighten, add vignetting and my little watermark. I don’t apply vignetting to all but to many shots. So don’t judge lenses because of my images. hehe..
During all this I also add stars to my favorites, this I later use when publishing to the couple and the very best here on my website. I ended up with 44 images in this post and 133 to the couple, I started with about 300 from SPP and around 700 in total from field..
The two above shots are DP1
DP1
There is all in all 44 images in this post. Click each image to view the full size image. Remember that this is copyrighted material.
Continue reading ‘Daniel & Maria | Wedding with SD14 and DP1′
Not much to say, have a session tomorrow and wanted to know how much I could trust my 30mm wide open. Some shots turned out quite nice so I decided to share. :) All images are uploaded as full size (converted automatic via 1001 flickr uploader - in case you see some nasty JPEG artefacts).
Finally after much wait - here is the first of two parts from a photo session I had for the second year somewhere in the wilderness of Sweden. Now, these shots are not meant to be examined deeply - much because some of them are not extremely in focus. (I left the camera sometimes on a tripod having just a trigger in my hand and therefor they could walk out of focus).
I alternated between three different PS plugins to get the look that I wanted or simply to blow out the white background. The ones used most (for white background) is Viveza, the secondly most used is AlienSkin Exposure and the third used for one or two shots is Nik Color Efex Pro.
All shots are here presented in full resolution. Two shots have been slightly cropped. The rest have been left as is.
Click each for full size view. Enjoy!
Yes, it’s me (above and below).
There is more to come.
Click below for some more from this very session.
Continue reading ‘Crazy studio session, SD14 + DP1 | Part 1′
Been working with a photographer in HK with an very interesting photo book. The book contains photos taken mainly with tmax iso3200 film and I wanted to know how far the SD14 could go, especially with the “film alike” three layer technology that we’re blessed with.
So I set my camera at -1 exposure (-2 and -3 depending on wanted ISO) at ISO1600 and started to enjoy my new faster shutter speeds and everything you see here is handheld and most of the would be impossible with anything slower (camera shake). Speed varies between 1/15 to 1/100 and most of them are shot wide open. I used P mode.
Result? Noise characteristics and dynamic range feels very similar to black and white film. I have bought a Sigma SA-300 film camera and will in the near future take same shots in order to really see how well they compare. :)
Click each picture for full size.
Note: Most of these has absolutely no sharpening and noise reduction turned off. Especially extremely high ISO 6400 - 12800 has some noise reduction applied from Raw Developer. Continue reading ‘High ISO experiment. 3200 - 12800 BW’
I got lots of questions / full size sample requests about the first black and white portrait so I decided to make it available not as RAW this time but resized to match 14mp. All noise reduction is completely turned off (possible using Raw Developer) which gives extra detail and realistic, film like qualities. - I also saved info in the darker portion of the image.
No additional sharpening, level, curves etc. I did clone out part of a wall though and added vignetting. :) - This sample should be perfect for anyone having a printer and that would like to know what a SD14 4.6mp image will look like a bit bigger. There is stair stepping in this image and with qimage or other software it would probably look a bit better.
Click for the final 4600 x 3057 (14mp) image.
EDIT: I posted a comparison over at dpreview’s Sigma forum.
RAW + Raw Developer setting: download.
ArkadiaFoto in Partille / Göteborg invited me to help them shot some models. I wanted to see and test the studio so I went there this very evening and tried light and some of my lenses. So here’s some of the resulting pictures. All images availible as almost full size download. I ended up using one profoto softboxed 1200w light slightly behind me to the right.
Lenses used: 30mm, 70-200, 120-300 and 10-20.
Camera: SD14 - ISO set to 100 by mistake. Should of course have been ISO50.
Sigma 30mm - RD note: Monochrome XDR
Sigma 10-20mm
Sigma 120-300mm RD note - colors slightly damped.
Sigma 70-200mm
Sigma 30mm again. Too much fun.
Note: All images has been altered slightly in PS with vignetting and some has seen a touch of Alien skin Exposure. The man on these images belong to Arkadiamodels.com
Today we had the luxury of spending the day with film director Hou Hsiao-Hsien and his lovely wife. After a different dinner at the entrance cafeteria of ICA Maxi i Mölndal we continued to Kungälv where we looked at some old houses and a castle - Tried to go many places but couldn’t reach people. We decided to go to my home instead and just relax. (and of course I told everything and nothing about my cool equipment! :D
First picture where I was happy to see my self inside his eyes. :D (see crop below first picture) - I should of course have saved the blow out but well..
Nine RAW + One in-camera jpeg from my club-nights. The package is roughly 100mb, they’re all copyrighted but for your enjoyment / printing / testing / playing. If you wish to use any of these images for commercial purposes, please contact me first at carl@rytterfalk.com
Recommended converters:
LR - Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.3 (Mac/PC)
SPP - Sigma Photo Pro 2.3 (Mac/PC)
RD - Raw Developer 1.7.2 (Mac only)
Some selected photos from Excet, BLVD and Tranquilo in Göteborg. All images are taken in RAW and processed with RD - some also post-processed using Exposure. (especially the first one) . Camera as always my good old SD14. pictures that looks wide are taken with the new 10mm fisheye from Sigma. I didn’t have any other flash then the on-camera for that one. I actually had TWO SD14 cameras with me out this weekend. I must have looked extremely pro. haha
I’m also sorry to say that after my Leopard installation I can’t get my Spyder2 to work. So I’m sure that colors are not as they should be, at least not perfect. I did the “visual” calibration now and noticed that all came out more dark than I thought. hmm.. Need a spyder2 update now!!
I attended MyDog 2008 in Göteborg today and took some pictures. The light was really really bad. Weak fluorescent lamps all over the place. I used my SD14 plus my 30mm and set iso speed at 800. I didn’t take much much pictures because it looked horrible on the LCD and that didn’t encourage me.. ;) Please Sigma, let me select monochrome white balance! Later I found Raw Developers monochrome XDR input profile to make wonders - Colors could actually work but BW’s are just so much more beautiful.
[Update 2008-01-2: RAW package with club-shots for download!]
To get good pictures in bad light condition is easy if you know how to do it. This guide will show you one, easy way with the help of an external flash. You can use your on-camera flash but results will probably not look as soft and as pleasing. It works the same way though. This guide in swedish.
Preparation. All things written here works for most Nikon / Canon / whatever branded flashes / SLR cameras (even advanced point and shooters). I use the Sigma SD14 + a EF-500DG. I like it because of colors and sharpness. You need a flash where you can twirl and rotate the head. (see picture below)
Set the camera in Manual mode (M) - aim the flash straight up and turn the head as seen on the above picture, you should have the white side of the paper aimed at the person you’re photographing. (see abetterbouncecard.com - Mine is heavily inspired by this one). You can use A mode as well and let camera control shutter speed but I like to be in charge.
Aperture. Now I tune aperture to F1.6. I use Sigma 30mm almost wide open so that shutter speeds are durable at ISO100 - if your lens is slower you might consider ISO400 - 800 or even higher - if not you will have to stand still for a second or two just waiting for the shutter to close. I also use F1.6 so that main subjects become sharp and background soft and cozy. See background on below picture.
Shutter speed. When you decided you aperture it’s time for your shutter speed. Now don’t look at the speed itself, look at the under / over exposed information +-0 thingi - you see this in your view finder. The higher this number is, the brighter the background is. The lower - the darker. Darker means faster shutter speed.
Fill light. The main subjects will be more or less the same whatever you select and is controlled by the TTL. I’m often down to -2 or even lower because I want main subjects to stand out a bit more (see picture below).
Above picture was a misstake and I used in camera Jpeg. I suggest you use RAW in order to get the most out of every picture. Click for higher resolution.
I always use ISO100 - this to get punchy living colors and perfect sharpness down to pixel by pixel level. You never know what you might wanna do with these pictures and it’s always nice to be able to print really really big.
Assist light. Whatever flash you use - a good assist light is of great importance. If you have it, it will work automatically. Without it you can forget using fun lenses such as the 30mm. remember that at F1.6 focus is extremly narrow and it’s cruzial that focus hits the eyelash and nothing else. (Focus on the eyes to get the most pleasing results. Lucky for us ladies paint them for us!).
Experiment. If you wanna go wide you can use a lens such as the 10-20 and shoot at F4 and 2-8s - that will give you cool colors and fancy dancing, you need to be quite stable though seconds are loong time and don’t bring a tripod.
Also try to hold still for a moment and the quickly move away, that’s what I did to get this blue trike above her face. (below picture) Shutter speed 1.6s at ISO100 and F1.6.
White Balance / LCD. I use Sun White balance on the SD14 because it gives the most pleasing results on the LCD. And this is VERY important. If it looks bad on the LCD you will not get an OK from the person. Doesn’t matter how good you’re in the computer since they don’t know that. Later I adjust colors in my raw developer, SUN WB is a great starting point. Sunlight and flash is very close in temperature.
Good luck!
Articles including lots o photos and some more info:
http://www.rytterfalk.com/2007/12/30/lounges-saturday-2912-avenyse/
http://www.rytterfalk.com/2007/12/30/excet-saturday-2912-avenyse/
http://www.rytterfalk.com/2007/12/30/locatelli-friday-2812-avenyse/
http://www.rytterfalk.com/2007/12/30/tranquilo-friday-avenyse/
http://www.rytterfalk.com/2007/12/22/sd14-at-night-clubs/
I came home a quarter past four last night (today) and It took me about one and a half hour for fix all RAW files from Excet and Lounge(s) and get all names etc ready for prime time. Still the same good old 30mm at F1.6. A few also with the 10-20. I used Raw Developer for this session and Lightroom for Excet session..
See the rest from this evening over at www.aveny.se
My first satuday and my second time at this very club. It was not as crowded as last time. I start to become good friend with the Sigma 500DG flash. Together with Sigma 30mm @ F1.6 we’re a great team.
See the rest from this very evening over at www.aveny.se
For the sake of speed I used Lightroom for developing and I’m sure I could squeeze quite some more feeling out of these with Raw Developer or Sigma Photo Pro 2.3.
See the rest from this evening over at www.aveny.se (direct link)
I’ve started to take pictures for Aveny.se as a so called “vimmelfotograf” Not sure about the english translation but you understand the meaning a guess. :) It’s lots of fun. This very session I forgot to use RAW - and all these are more or less straight out from the SD14. I think they look great! (Hi - Fine mode)
See the rest from Tranquilo 28/12 2007.
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